20

of 

The Birdwatcher’s Digest

will include the latest

statistics on the various games that members are
playing and how they rank on the overall basis.” It
was decreed that Hawaii be excluded from the list-
ing game, and it was proposed that Canada be
treated as the fiftieth U. S. state.

With vol. 1 (1969), the publication took on the

basic format that is still in place today: six issues
per year, each one published every other month.
The journal’s name was changed to 

Birding

, and its

total production cost was reported to be $50 per
issue (September/October, p. 1). An understand-
able emphasis of vol. 1—which ran to 81 pages in
extent—was on definitions and ground rules. The
competitive and sporting aspects of birding were
right away identified as major foci for 

Birding

. And

just as quickly, the focus on listing was being crit-
icized (March/April, p. 5). Other topics that were
tackled early on included the following: “official”
state lists (March/April, p. 10), heard-only species
(May/June, p. 4), and exotics (May/June, pp.
13–14). It was proposed that the name of the ABA
be changed to the American Birding Association
(March/April, p. 2), and that Associate and Active
memberships in the ABA be based on the size of
one’s life list (March/April, p. 10).

By the end of 1969, there were 128 members of

the ABA (November/December, p. 16), and 

pro

tem

officers of the ABA had been appointed (No-

vember/December, p. 3). The November/Decem-
ber issue included bird finding information on
Swainson’s Warbler and European [sic] Tree Spar-
row (inserts), “Notes” on four North American
firsts from the Pribilofs and on a Dusky [sic] Red-
shank “collected somewhere in the Northeast re-
cently” (p. 8), and Noel Pettingell’s “Ten Most
Wanted Species” in North America (p. 14). Was
there an overarching theme to this first full year of

Birding

and the ABA? According to Jim Tucker

(September/October, p. 3), the publication and the
organization were emerging as “a proving ground
for new ideas, and a testing ground for old ones.”

B I R D I N G   •   J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y   2 0 0 6

E D I T O R I A L

Note: For several years now, this column has had a
strong—maybe even an obsessive—emphasis on cur-
rent and future trends in birding. Well, we’re going to
be reversing course for a little while now, as we take
a look at our past. Our approach will be a simple one:
We will examine back issues of 

Birding

, starting with

vol. 0 no. 0, way back in 1968, and winding up all the
way in the present. Let’s not be bashful: There is no
better record of the American birding experience than
what has been chronicled on the pages of 

Birding

.

Of course, there is a twist. It will be clear, pretty

much from the outset, that much of the olden-day ma-
terial in 

Birding

has, in fact, anticipated the present

and, indeed, points the way to the future. Perhaps we
are not reversing course so much, then, as we are
simply shifting gears. We do not wish to “run the risk
of becoming tedious and ossified”, as Paul J. Baicich
put it in one of his last editorials (“Some changes”,
February 2002, p. 8). Our focus here is still on the fu-
ture, even as we commence a yearlong journey 

back

to the future.

u

u

u

The beginnings are murky. No date is indicated,
but it had to be sometime back in 1968 that the
quirkily numbered vol. 0 no. 0 of 

The Birdwatcher’s

Digest

was “published”. It would later be revealed

(

Birding

, July/August 1973, p. 125) that the “print

run”—if one might call it that—of this five-page
newsletter had been 10 copies. The new publica-
tion of the “American Birdwatcher’s Association”
billed itself as “a journal devoted to the hobby of
birdwatching” and “a magazine strictly for bird-
watchers”. Membership in the ABA was $3.

Listing was the main thrust of vol. 0 no. 0, even

though official list-keeping was in its infancy at
the time. There were only nine entries in the Top
10 Life Lists, and the fifth-best AOU-area annual
list for 1967 was a meager 233 species. Progress
was anticipated in the listing arena, however, and
it was promised in vol. 0 no. 0 that “[e]ach issue

The History of 

Birding

Part I. 1968–1974

The History of 

Birding

Part I. 1968–1974

The History of 

Birding

Part I. 1968–1974

 

 

 

 

 

 

W W W . A M E R I C A N B I R D I N G . O R G

21

Check-list area.” A few months later, Joe Taylor became
the first member of the “700 Club”, as reported with great
fanfare in the May/June issue (pp. 114–116). There was
pride in these accomplishments, but there was also a pal-
pable sense that more was on the way: The pelagic frontier
was opening (November/December, pp. 278 & 280), a na-

tional RBA was under discussion
(November/December, p. 279),
and the first ABA convention was
in the planning stages (Septem-
ber/October, p. 201).

A standout in the 1973 volume

of 

Birding

was the July/August is-

sue. It was the first issue of 

Birding

to feature photography—including
a black-and-white cover photo-
graph of Roger Tory Peterson and
Kenn Kaufman out birding. In ad-
dition to a thorough report on the
first ABA convention in Kenmare,
North Dakota (pp. 128–138), the
July/August issue contained such
features as the first ABA Checklist
report (p. 139), an enumeration of
the first slate of elected directors
for the ABA (p. 140), and the pub-
lication of the newly ratified by-
laws of the ABA (pp. 162–166). In-
coming president G. Stuart Keith,
in his review of the growth of the
ABA (p. 127), put it this way:
“You’ve come a long way, Baby!”

Yes, 

Birding

and the ABA had

come a long way, but additional
growth and expansion were in the
offing. The 1974 volume of 

Birding

was the biggest yet (332 pages), and the ABA membership
had grown to 1,872 by year’s end. Continuing an emphasis
from the early 1970s, vol. 6 carried frequent coverage of the
matter of international birding, with feature articles on a
wide variety of foreign destinations, plus Stuart Keith’s epic
“Birding Planet Earth: A World Overview” (July/August,
pp. 203–216). If Keith’s article reflected the prevailing cur-
rents of the day, then Maggie Bowman’s short letter to the
editor in the September/October issue (pp. 232–233) laid
the groundwork for the future. “My main interest in 

Bird-

ing

”, she said, “is the hope that you will publish articles on

the fine, fine points of field identification”.

— Ted Floyd

21

The tone of vol. 2 (1970) was sometimes cantankerous.

(Do periodical publications, like toddlers, go through the
Terrible Twos?) The January/February issue opened with a
“Forum” (p. 2) that included such verbiage as ‘shudder’,
‘troubled’, ‘factions’, ‘polemics’, and ‘dissatisfied’. The edito-
rial that followed (p. 3) advised against conservation cov-
erage on the pages of 

Birding

,

which would be “subverting our
reason for exist[e]nce”. Next came
a plea from Dean Fisher (p. 5),
with capital letters and an excla-
mation point, to L

EAVE

S

CIENCE

O

UT

! After that: an essay by

George A. Hall (pp. 6–7), on the
problems and pitfalls of the com-
petitive aspect of birding. And so
it continued throughout 1970:
listing and egos (March/April, pp.
9–10), listing and integrity
(March/April, p. 13), the pros and
cons of collecting (May/June, pp.
5–9), membership qualifications
(July/August, p. 2), and, of course,
splitting and lumping (Septem-
ber/October, pp. 7–10).

Birding

got a makeover in 1971.

In years 0–2, it had been essential-
ly a newsletter, both in appearance
and in content. By 1971, however,

Birding

had taken on the look of a

professional journal, with a mast-
head, instructions for contribu-
tors, and continuous pagination.
There were the usual bird lists and
(strongly expressed) opinion
pieces, but the expanded content
(258 pages in 1971, up from 96 in 1970) allowed for new
exploration of such matters as bird finding and bird identi-
fication. The lead article in the September/October issue
(pp. 155–156) captured the essence of American birding at
the time: P. William Smith, writing about the 1971 summer
shorebird bonanza at Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge,
New Jersey, concluded that, “We are only cognizant of the
tip of the iceberg, and if this year’s kind of coverage con-
tinues I suspect the excitement has only just begun.”

The 1972 volume of 

Birding

reported extensively on the

interrelated matters of bird finding and bird listing. For ex-
ample, there was Ted Parker’s article (January/February,
pp. 6–10) that began with the simple but shocking words,
“In 1971 I observed 626 species of birds in the A.O.U.

The first issue of 

Birding

to have a cover photograph (Roger Tory Peterson,

left; Kenn Kaufman, right) was the July/August 1973 (vol. 5, no. 4) issue.